Ta no Kami, Ta-no-Kami 田の神 Tanokami, God of the Fields -
Introduction and Legends paddy field Kami, god of the rice paddies, spirit of the rice field, Kami of the rice paddy

Ta no Kami, God of the Rice Fields is an important deity of the rice farming communities.
It is usually seen as a female deity with one eye.
In Spring she comes down from the village mountain forest to the ta 田 rice fields to protect the harvest, hence the name Ta no Kami

In Autumn after the harvest, Ta no Kami goes back to the Satoyama mountain or forest behind the village to take a rest and collect strength for the next season..

- quote - Tanokami "Kami of the rice paddy,"
a tutelary of rice production. The general term ta no kami can be found nationwide, but regional variations exist in the specific names used to refer to the kami. Some include nōgami (farming kami) in the northeast, sakugami (kami of production) in Yamanashi and Nagano, and tsukurigami (kami of making) in the Kinki area. People in the Izumo region use the term i no kami (kami of the wild boar), while the term jigami (land kami) is used in the Inland Sea region, and ushigami (kami of cattle) in Kyushu.

The rice paddy kami has also undergone synthesis with Ebisu in eastern Japan, and with Daikoku in the west, leading to different cults from those of fishing and commerce normally associated with these two deities.

Festivals celebrating the kami of the rice paddy are ordinarily distributed between spring and autumn in accordance with the various stages of the agricultural process, but they are especially noteworthy around the time of spring rice transplanting, while additional rituals may be held at harvest. Examples of the former include observances called saori (greeting the rice-field kami) and sanaburi (or sanoburi, "sending off the rice-field kami"), while the latter include i no ko ("child of the boar") and tōkan'ya ("tenth night").
The cycle of spring and autumn festivals celebrating the rice paddy kami are seen nationwide, and appear to be linked to legendary concepts of identity between the rice paddy kami and the mountain kami (yama no kami) in those two seasons. Namely, in spring it is believed that the mountain kami descends from the mountain to the village, becoming the kami of the rice paddy, and in fall, the rice paddy kami leaves the field and returns to the mountain, where it becomes the mountain kami.
Certain differences exist in some regions, however. In the ritual called aenokoto of the Noto area, for example, the same kami circulates between rice paddy and the home, while in other examples, the deity is believed to remain in the field as a "guardian watch." The tradition of the "watch" kami is related to the legend that all the kami throughout Japan gather at the Izumo Shrine in the tenth lunar month (called kannazuki, or "month without kami"), while the "watch" kami alone remains behind to keep guard.

This deity with one eye and one leg comes to the fields to protect them before the harvest, now in the form of a kakashi, with one leg and one eye.
Even the modern yellow plastic balloons with one black ring, which hang in the fields, are a modern version of this deity with one eye.

- quote - Tano Kami (田の神)
is a kami who is believed to observe the harvest of rice plants or to bring a good harvest, by Japanese farmers. Ta in Japanese means "rice fields". Tano Kami is also called Noshin (kami of agriculture) or kami of peasants. Tano Kami shares the kami of corn, the kami of water and the kami of defense, especially the kami of agriculture associated with mountain faith and veneration of the dead (faith in the sorei). Tano Kami in Kagoshima Prefecture and parts of Miyazaki Prefecture is unique; farmers pray before Tano Kami stone statues in their communities.- Agricultural kami
In Japan, there are agricultural deities or kami. In the Japanese documents, Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, there were kami of rice plants, Ukano Mitama, Toyouke Bimeno Kami, and kami of corns, Ootoshino Kami. （Of them, Toyouke Bimeno Kami was written also in Engishiki, and is considered to be a female kami.
Generally speaking, in the Tohoku area of Japan, agriculture-related kami is Nogami (agriculture kami), in the Koshin area, it is Sakugami, in the Kinki area, it is Tsukurigami, in the Tajima and Inaba areas, it is kami of i, i no kami 亥の神 (inoshishi, wild boar), (On the day of i 亥の日, the fields are struck; which is considered to give peace on the harvest ground). In the Chugoku and Shikoku areas, it is Sanbai Sama, in Setonaikai, it is the local kami. ...- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

- quote -
... in a park in Ikebukuro in downtown Tokyo ...
This particular Suitengu is just a small local shrine in front of which stand four very unusual stone statues. Seen from the front, these stones depict stolid standing monks with grinning, almost mischievous faces. In their hands, they hold small bowls topped with steamed rice, and shamoji paddle-shaped rice ladles. Although the local people treat these stones as Dosojin guardians, they are actually Ta no Kami, rice paddy spirits that have somehow arrived here from southern Kyushu region.

The Ta no Kami cult is widespread throughout the country, and is at the heart of Japanese rural folk cosmology. The Japanese imbue rice with a sacred reverence and deep cultural significance that completely transcends the plant’s nutritional and economic value as a food grain. It was rice, first brought here from the Korean Peninsula nearly 3,000 years ago, that transformed Japan from a land of scattered hunter-gatherers to a great nation. Gohan, the basic word for cooked rice, is also a general term for food or a meal. Even today, the Japanese people, despite their insatiable appetite for bread and noodles, still think of themselves as rice eaters.

In most regions, the Ta no Kami are represented abstractly, with tree branches decorated with strips of paper, sometimes stuck into mounds of sand. In a restricted area of southern Kyushu, however, there is a tradition, dating back to at least the early 18th century, of carving unique stone representations, locally called Ta no Kansa. This tradition centers in Kagoshima Prefecture but includes a small portion of neighboring Miyazaki Prefecture as well.- snip -Yama no Kami reside in hills and forests all over Japan.
They can be thought of as basic animistic spirits mingled with the departed souls of the local ancestors, which are believed to eventually rise into the mountains. In many regions, these basic protective spirits inhabit the mountains during the winter months, but come spring they move down into the rice paddies, turning into the Ta no Kami and watching over the precious crop until the autumn harvest is over, after which they return to the forested slopes. In Kyushu, the Ta no Kansa stones are placed on the dikes that surround and separate the paddies, and the villagers hold colorful festivals to welcome and petition the Ta no Kami in spring, and to see them off with great thanks in autumn. - source : Green Shinto 2012 -

- quote - Ta-no-kami: Water God of the rice paddy
Ta-no-kami: “Kami of the rice paddy,” a tutelary of rice production.
The general term ta no kami can be found nationwide. While the ta-no-kami has undergone synthesis and conflated with other folk beliefs and deities from other lineages, such as Daikoku and the Lord of the Mountain (Yama no Kami) and is now thought of as a male mountain spirit, it is plausible that the early Ta no kami was originally a female water goddess, given that such a goddess was venerated throughout Eurasia, and much of Central and Southeast Asia and given that the sound of “Ta” is similar to the “Da” shortened Indian form of the Danu / Dana / Dhanya goddess.
The Ta no kami
is depicted usually as an abstract deity or holding phallic symbols ...

09/08/2014

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ahirukusa moji 阿比留草文字 ahiru kusa characters
（あひるくさもじ）

Izumo moji 出雲文字Fujihase moji 節墨譜文字Hayahito no te 薩人書 (from Satsuma)

jindai moji 神代文字 “scripts of the age of the gods”

- quoteJindai moji or Kamiyo moji (Japanese: 神代文字 “scripts of the age of the gods”)
are characters that was said to be scripts used in ancient Japan. Debates since Edo period and Japanese academic society regard Jindai moji as forgeries. Although ancient character researchers insisted the existence as Uetsufumi or Hotsumatae found, it is denied in historiography because of no existence of earthenware with it. People who believe in the existence use the word Jindai moji in the meaning of "ancient characters". Since around mid-Edo period some people have been saying ancient characters were found in remains, Kofuns and mountains such as Chikushi characters, Hokkaido characters. Hundreds kinds of Jindai moji were said to be found.

History
Jindai moji was firstly addressed in the end of Kamakura period by Urabe no Kanekata (卜部兼方) in Shaku Nihongi mentioning his father, Urabe no Kanefumi, assumed ancient people could not have performed oracle bone style fortunetelling with turtles (亀卜, Kameura; turtle fortunetelling) as described in Nihon Shoki without having characters. Though there was no Jindai moji characters introduced in Muromachi period, some types of Jindai moji appeared in Edo period and each of them named after the source article or the place the characters discovered. Debate over the existence erupted in Edo period. Japanese academic society denies the existence.

... While scholars generally have negative opinions, Some scholars such as Inbe Masamichi (忌部正通)、Arai Hakuseki、Hirata Atsutane 、Takamasa Omiya(大国隆正) affirmed the existence of Jindai moji which Urabe no Kanekata (卜部兼方) first mentioned in Shaku-Nihongi in Kamakura era.

04/06/2014

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kannagara, zuishin 随身

- quote
Kannagara
Also written with characters such as 随神、神随、神在随、随在天神、乍神、神長柄、神奈我良、and 可牟奈我良.
Nagara, made up of the particle na and gara, "true character", is a word expressing dignity.
Kannagara has been interpreted in various ways, such as "kami just as they are," "as a kami," "because of being a kami," and "the kami’s will, just as it is." Further, the expression kannagara no ōmichi (the way in accordance with the will of the kami), signifying Shintō itself, was frequently used after the beginning of the Meiji period (1868).
The term has attracted a great deal of commentary regarding its meaning, pronunciation and significance since the Edo period and there is no one established theory.- source : Fukui Yoshihiko, Kokugakuin 2007

04/02/2014

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torii kuguri 鳥居潜り walking through a Shinto torii gate

The Torii stands at the border of the sacred compound. Before entering, you stop before the gate and make one deep bow. Be aware that you are now entering a sacred compound and be greatful for this.
The middle part of the access road from the torii to the shrine is reserved for the deities, so you should not walk in the middle. After bowing, proceede to the right or left and pass the gate.
Walk toward the hand-washing basin (手水 temizu, choozu) and cleanse hand, mouth and mind.

This shrine also boasts the lowest mini-torii with a history of 200 years.
To crawl under it wards off evil, brings health (especially preventing women's diseases), helps with an easy birth and brings good business.
無病息災、健康開運、諸業繁栄

This is popular during the main festival from March 1 to 3.
The torii is about 30 cm high.

- quote
Since mini-torii are the shrine’s specialty, the parents in the district asked the authorities to create some special ones so their kids could crawl through in the hope of helping them pass school entrance examinations. That’s how the shrine’s chief priest came up with the idea for the one he’s showing off in the photo. The shrine has assembled it during the exam period during the past two years, and this year it was left up until March 31.

The pencils are 60 centimeters high and have a diameter of 10 centimeters. The inner opening is also 30 centimeters square. Pencils usually have six sides, but the priest must have been divinely inspired to make these with five. The word for passing a test in Japanese is gookaku 合格 gokaku, with a slightly elongated o sound.
Make the o sound shorter, and the word can mean 五角 “five angles”.- source : ampontan.wordpress.com

This mini torii is for a baby, which can be pushed through in the baby bed.

There is also a course with three mini torii in the compound.
They are getting smaller, 33, 30 and 27 cm. The 27 one is said to be the lowest mini torii in Japan. Somehow they represent the birth path of a baby during childbirth.

To crawl through them will bring a good partner for life, healthy children and a blissful marriage..
This is especially popular with the ladies during the festival time.

07/11/2013

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taisai 大祭 major festival, major rites, Grand Festival

- quoteTaisai
One division of shrine rites, conducted in the form of major festivals. After the Meiji Restoration, these observances became regulated under government ordinance, and since 1945 they have been specified in the Regulations of Shrine Observances (Jinja saishi kitei) of the Association of Shinto Shrines (jinja honchō). The Regulations divide taisai into reisai 例祭, kinensai 記念祭, niinamesai 新嘗祭, shikinensai, chinzasai, senzasai, gōshisai, bunshisai, and rites based on special shrine traditions.

The standard for taisai is set by rites with a public character and a long history, such as those involving the transfer of a deity, festivals closely connected to the enshrined deity or the origin of a shrine. The instructions for such rites are set out in the Jinja saishiki, which specifies in detail how the rites are to be conducted.

The system of categorizing rites by their content and size goes back to the Ritsuryō period. According to the Jingiryō code for shrine rites,
"taishi are rites celebrated during an entire month, while chūshi last three days and shōshi only one day."

The rites are differentiated by the length of the period of abstinence that must be observed before it. The only large-scale rite mentioned for its especially important significance is the daijōsai (sokui), which is conducted as part of the ceremonies for imperial accession and is codified in the Engishiki. In the Ordinance of Imperial Household Rites (Kōshitsu saishi rei) of 1908, rites are divided into major (taisai) and minor (shōsai).

Taisai are the rites in which "the emperor leads the imperial family and government officials" and include genshisai, kigensetsu, spring and autumn kōreisai, spring and autumn shindensai, Jinmu tennōsai, kannamesai, niinamesai, senteisai (rites for the previous emperor), rites for the previous three generations of emperors, rites for the previous empress and rites for the previous empress dowager.

The daijōsai is not prescribed in the Kōshitsu saishirei, but instead in the Ordinance on Ascension to the Throne (tōkyokurei). As a very important rite celebrated only once per imperial reign, the daijōsai is treated in the Ordinance as representing a special category by itself.- source : Mogi Sadasumi , Kokugakuin

- quoteReisai
The annual ‘major festival' (taisai) of a shrine, held on a day related either to the enshrined deity or the origin of the shrine. The term reisai is relatively recent.

In ancient times this festival was distinguished from other rites held throughout the year by using the honorific terms ōmatsuri ('great festival') or onmatsuri, or by associating it directly with the name of the shrine, as in Kasuga-sai, Kamo-sa and Iwashimizu-sai. Occurrences of the term reisai in illustrated guidebooks of the Edo period indicate that use of the word was widespread by this time, such festivals being perceived as differing from others.

Under the shrine system of the Meiji period, the kinensai, niinamesai and other rites were classified as taisai, and ceremonies in which emissaries (chokushi or heihaku kyōshinshi) made offerings were held at various shrines ranking from ‘government shrines' (kanpeisha) down to village shrines.

Given that reisai are held on days that have a special connection to the enshrined deity or the origins of the shrine, the dates of their celebration cannot be changed without special reasons. The reisai of some of the most prominent shrines are:

The Grand Shrines of Ise do not have a designated reisai, but the kannamesai of October 17, with its close association with the enshrined deity, is probably its closest equivalent. Although the system of making offerings from public funds was abolished after the war, imperial emissaries still visit shrines on the occasion of the hōbeisai.

Furthermore, the tradition is being continued by the Association of Shinto Shrines, which sends its own emissaries with offerings (honchōhei). The Association also attaches special importance to the dates designated for reisai, which cannot be changed without its approval.- source : Motegi Sadasumi, Kokugakuin

shinbutsu shūgō 神仏習合 Shin Butsu Shugo - syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism
A wide variety of titles have come into use in accordance with the unique characteristics of kami, and as a result of historical changes in the way kami have been understood. In the ancient period, the title mikoto was used, while expressions such as myōjin ("shining kami"), daibosatsu (great bodhisattva), and gongen (avatar) came into use as a product of kami-buddha combinatory cults (shinbutsu shūgō).
During the Edo period, the title reisha ("spirit shrine") was applied to the departed spirits of human beings.. 神仏 － read the details HERE .

Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku as a Combinatory Paradigm
by Fabio Rambelli (Editor), Mark Teeuwen (Editor)
This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the combinatory tradition that dominated premodern and early modern Japanese religion, known as honji suijaku (originals and their traces). It questions received, simplified accounts of the interactions between Shinto and Japanese Buddhism, and presents a more dynamic and variegated religious world, one in which the deities' Buddhist originals and local traces did not constitute one-to-one associations, but complex combinations of multiple deities based on semiotic operations, doctrines, myths, and legends. The book's essays, all based on specific case studies, discuss the honji suijaku paradigm from a number of different perspectives, always integrating historical and doctrinal analysis with interpretive insights.- quote - amazon com -

- quoteShinbutsu Bunri 神仏分離The separation of Shinto and Buddhism.
A series of administrative measures implemented by the Meiji government, designed to prohibit the shinbutsu shūgō (the systemic combination of kami and buddhas, shrines and temples, and their priesthoods) system that had its roots in the Nara Period (710-94). Buddhism, which arrived in Japan in the sixth century, steadily combined with Shinto until the emergence in the medieval period of the honji suijaku theory (the idea that kami were trace manifestations of "original" bodhisattvas) which came to constitute what one might call "Japanese religion."

In other words, there now began to proliferate across Japan the erection of temples within shrine compounds (jingūji), the practice of sutra reading at shrines, the application of the term "bodhisattva" to kami, and the celebration of rites at shrines by bettō or shasō (priests wearing Buddhist garb). Apart from Ise Jingū and a few other exceptions, most shrines were placed under Buddhist control. The combinatory dimension of shrines in the Hachiman and Gion lineages, which from the outset had a thick Buddhist coloration, was even more pronounced. Many were sites that were no longer distinguishable as either Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine.

In response to this situation, anti-Buddhist thought strengthened in the early modern period under the influence of Confucianism and kokugaku (National Learning, nativism). Kokugaku thinkers and shrine priests (shinshoku) began to call fervently for a return of shrines to their original form. The Restoration government, which came to power in 1868 proclaiming a "return to imperial rule" (ōsei fukko) and a political transformation that claimed the same creative state-founding legitimacy as that held by the mythological first emperor Jinmu (jinmu sōgyō), put the theory into practice and endeavored to clarify the distinction between shrines and temples. On the seventeenth day of the third month of that year, the government issued the "separation edicts" and ordered the defrocking of the bettō and shasō.
This was the first stage of shinbutsu bunri.

The second stage began on the twenty-eighth, when the government banned the application of Buddhist terminology such as gongen (avatar) to kami, and the veneration of Buddhist statues as the shintai (the sacred presence or enshrined deity) at shrines.

The beginning of the third stage was marked by the promulgation of orders on the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month banning the application of the Buddhist term "Daibosatsu" to Hachiman at Iwashimizu Hachimangū and Usa Hachimangū (presently Usa Jingū). Hachiman was henceforth to be known as Hachiman Daijin.

Finally, on the fourth day of the fourth intercalary month, all the defrocked bettō and shasō were instructed to restyle themselves as "shrine priests" (kannushi) and to resume shrine service. Those who refused on the grounds of their Buddhist beliefs were ordered to leave their shrines. At the same time, orders were issued to the Nichiren (Buddhist) Sect to desist from referring to the sanjū banshin (Thirty Protective Tutelary [Lotus] Deities) as kami.

As a result of these measures, all shades of Buddhism were eliminated from shrines across Japan. There were shrine priests, nativists and local government officials who interpreted these regulations as implying that Buddhism should be destroyed (this event was known in Japanese as haibutsu kishaku, which literally means "abandon Buddhism and throw out Shakyamuni [the historical Buddha]") and embarked on an extreme anti-Buddhist campaign.

This prompted central government to strictly instruct shrine priests that the separation of the two was to be conducted with utmost care, and that the intention was not the destruction of Buddhism. However, central government instructions had little impact until the abolition of the domains in 1871. Local government officials were still relatively powerful and, steeped as they were in Confucian thinking, they promoted anti-Buddhist policies across Japan in response to the separation regulations.
The result was the destruction of many temples and Buddhist treasures.source : Sakamoto Koremaru , Kokugakuin

- quote - Haibutsu kishaku (廃仏毀釈)
(literally "abolish Buddhism and destroy Shākyamuni")
is a term that indicates a current of thought continuous in Japan's history which advocates the expulsion of Buddhism from Japan. More narrowly, it also indicates a particular historic movement and specific historic events based on that ideology which, during the Meiji Restoration, produced the destruction of Buddhist temples, images and texts, and the forced return to secular life of Buddhist monks.
An early example of haibutsu kishaku
is the Mononobe clan's anti-Buddhist policies during the Kofun period. The Mononobe were opposed to the spread of Buddhism not on religious grounds, but rather because of nationalism and xenophobia. The Nakatomi clan, ancestors of the Fujiwara, were allies of the Mononobe in their opposition to Buddhism.

Another example is the policies of temple closure and monk defrocking of the Okayama, Aizu, and Mito Domains, also adopted for political and economic, rather than religious, reasons during the early modern period. These domainal policies were in general based on Confucian anti-Buddhist thought. The Meiji period form of haibutsu kishaku, based on kokugaku and Shinto-centrism, was instead dictated by a desire to distinguish between foreign Buddhism and a purely Japanese Shinto.- Haibutsu kishaku during the Meiji Restoration- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

In the Daido era (806-809), Kobo Daishi enshrined Amida Buddha、which was Honjibutsu (Buddhist counterpart of the deity of the shrine) and designated the shrine as the 68th of the 88 Holy Sites of Shikoku.
. . . when temples and shrines were separated according to the Shinbutsu Bunri policy of the national government, Honjibutsu Amida Buddha of Kotohiki Hachimangu Shrine was removed to Nishi-Kondo Hall of Kannonji Temple, which became the main hall of Jin’nein Temple; . . .

Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of what we call "religion." There was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning. But when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea. In this book, Jason Ānanda Josephson reveals how Japanese officials invented religion in Japan and traces the sweeping intellectual, legal, and cultural changes that followed.

More than a tale of oppression or hegemony, Josephson's account demonstrates that the process of articulating religion offered the Japanese state a valuable opportunity. In addition to carving out space for belief in Christianity and certain forms of Buddhism, Japanese officials excluded Shinto from the category. Instead, they enshrined it as a national ideology while relegating the popular practices of indigenous shamans and female mediums to the category of "superstitions"-- and thus beyond the sphere of tolerance. Josephson argues that the invention of religion in Japan was a politically charged, boundary-drawing exercise that not only extensively reclassified the inherited materials of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto to lasting effect, but also reshaped, in subtle but significant ways, our own formulation of the concept of religion today. This ambitious and wide-ranging book contributes an important perspective to broader debates on the nature of religion, the secular, science, and superstition.- amazon com -

The Fluid Pantheon: Gods of Medieval Japan
Faure, Bernard
Written by one of the leading scholars of Japanese religion, The Fluid Pantheon is the first installment of a multivolume project that promises to be a milestone in our understanding of the mythico-ritual system of esoteric Buddhism—specifically the nature and roles of deities in the religious world of medieval Japan and beyond. Bernard Faure introduces readers to medieval Japanese religiosity and shows the centrality of the gods in religious discourse and ritual; in doing so he moves away from the usual textual, historical, and sociological approaches that constitute the “method” of current religious studies. The approach considers the gods (including buddhas and demons) as meaningful and powerful interlocutors and not merely as cyphers for social groups or projections of the human mind. Throughout he engages insights drawn from structuralism, post-structuralism, and Actor-network theory to retrieve the “implicit pantheon” (as opposed to the “explicit orthodox pantheon”) of esoteric Japanese Buddhism (Mikkyō).

Through a number of case studies, Faure describes and analyzes the impressive mythological and ritual efflorescence that marked the medieval period, not only in the religious domain, but also in the political, artistic, and literary spheres. He displays vast knowledge of his subject and presents his research—much of it in largely unstudied material—with theoretical sophistication. His arguments and analyses assume the centrality of the iconographic record, and so he has brought together in this volume a rich and rare collection of more than 180 color and black-and-white images. This emphasis on iconography and the ways in which it complements, supplements, or deconstructs textual orthodoxy is critical to a fuller comprehension of a set of medieval Japanese beliefs and practices. It also offers a corrective to the traditional division of the field into religious studies, which typically ignores the images, and art history, which oftentimes overlooks their ritual and religious meaning.

The Fluid Pantheon and its companion volumes should persuade readers that the gods constituted a central part of medieval Japanese religion and that the latter cannot be reduced to a simplistic confrontation, parallelism, or complementarity between some monolithic teachings known as “Buddhism” and “Shinto.” Once these reductionist labels and categories are discarded, a new and fascinating religious landscape begins to unfold. - source : uhpress.hawaii.edu -

Yamazaki Ansai, drawing on the association of shin with the monkey (saru), advocated a Shintoistic kōshin cult, in which the primary object of worship was Sarutahiko. Within the Shugendō tradition as well, a unique form of the kōshin cult was propagated, so that there were three varieties of the faith: Buddhist, Shintō, and Shugendō.

10/09/2013

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shinigami 死神 God of Death "Grim Reaper"

- quoteShinigami (死神, "god of death" or "grim reaper")
are gods that invite humans towards death, or induce feelings of wanting to die in humans, as applied to concepts in Japanese religion, classics, folk religion, or popular culture. There also exist similar concepts outside of Japan.

- - - Shinigami in Japanese religionIn Buddhism,
there is the Mara that is concerned with death, the Mrtyu-mara. It is a demon that makes humans want to die, and it is said that upon being possessed by it, in a shock, one would suddenly want to commit suicide, so it is sometimes explained as a "shinigami". Also, in the Yogacarabhumi-sastra, a writing on Yogacara, it was a demon that decided the time of people's deaths. The Yama, the king of the Underworld, as well as oni like the Ox-Head and Horse-Face are also considered a type of shinigami.

In Shinto,
in Japanese mythology, Izanami gave humans death, so Izanami is sometimes seen as a shinigami.

However, Izanami and Yama are also thought to be different from the death gods in western mythology, and since atheism has been posited in Buddhism, it is sometimes seen that concept of a death god does not exist to begin with. Even though the kijin and onryō of Japanese Buddhist faith have taken humans' lives, there is the opinion that there is no "death god" that merely lead people into the world of the dead.

Shinigami in ningyō jōruri
Shinigami in classical literature
Shinigami in folk religion
Shinigami in modern popular culture